Xmas Memories- Here's Mine; Please Share Yours

[Modem Butterfly]

One of my most vivid Xmas memories is also the weirdest and least functional. My dad's baby brother was sent to rehab one fall, I believe it was '78 or '79. My brother and I were too young to be told where he'd gone and my aunt was pregnant with her first child. Uncle Mike had been back a couple of weeks by the time Xmas rolled around. Dad's family were recent immigrants, so traditions were really important to them. They had a very traditional Xmas tree with German decorations and all sorts of German treats. In their house, we got to open presents on Xmas Eve. We would all hold hands around the tree, sing a couple of carols and open gifts. Grandpa would always play Santa Claus and pass them out at random.

One of the first gifts was a beautifully wrapped gift from my Uncle Mike to my father (Dad was one of the main drivers in getting Uncle Mike to go to rehab). Everyone ooohed and ahhed while Dad opened it. It was a turd. A very large, very brown, very human turd. Uncle Mike had a big grin on his face. Grandma nearly fainted. Aunt Rose burst into tears. Dad and some of the other adult males took Uncle Mike outside. Mom picked up a gift and tried to smooth everything over.

The next gift was for my brother. It was from Uncle Mike. I'll never forget my brother shaking his head emphatically no. "No no no! I'm not opening that! NO WAY! Uh-uh!" My mother tried to plead with him to open the gift. "Uh-Uh! NO WAY! I don't want a shit gift!" She said, "Santa won't bring you any presents tonight,"
but he just didn't care. He wasn't opening it for love or money (for the record, it turned out to be a Star Wars action figure or something like that).

The family survived that Xmas. Uncle Mike got his act together and eventually settled down. And it's not warm or fuzzy, or even very pleasant when you think about it. But I'll never forget Uncle Mike's gift wrapped turd.

[Bunny]

1. Well, if that doesn't warm the cockles of your heart, I don't know what

will. My goodness, that certainly was memorable! Did your dad and Uncle Mike ever get past this, or did it cause a permanent rift?

[Modem Butterfly]

2. No no, everything was cool

My dad's a very mellow person. His family has always been pretty disgustingly functional compared to my moms.

Uncle Mike's oldest son died suddenly a few years back (he was still a teenager). The following Xmas was the first year I brought Will out with me (my partner). It was a pretty restrained occasion, as you might imagine. We were all milling about the Xmas tree when Will asked me "Which uncle shit in the box?". At that exact moment, the family had fallen silent, so everyone heard. Dead silence. Suddenly, Grandpa started laughing and pointed at Uncle Mike. "That's the uncle,". My dad started laughing, then Uncle Mike, and pretty soon we all got caught up. It was one of the few times that Xmas when everyone felt okay. It's kind of a fucked up Xmas memory, but its ours.

[Bunny]

3. Well, sounds like a good happy ending, then.

That's definitely a very unique story!

[TlalocW]

4. One of my hobbies is juggling

And mom always encouraged her kids' hobbies. So one year when I was in high school, we got up and Mom told me to go get three of my gifts that she had put in the box freezer in the garage. Ooookay. So I go out into the garage, and it's kind of dark in that corner. We hadn't been using the box freezer for a while so it was empty. I opened the lid, and I saw two large black round things and one blue one, and a dead orange cat on top of them.

We lived on the edge of a farming town in Kansas with a wheatfield in the back. We even had a fairly sizeable barn. So we had a lot of stray cats that would get semi-tamed and come up to the house, etc. Unfortunately, this one jumped in the freezer when the lid was open, and it asphyxiated, poor thing.

I looked at mom who was standing in the house-garage doorway and said, "You got me a dead, frozen cat for Christmas, and it's my favorite flavor - tabby!" She said, "What the hell are you talking about?" And I told her what was in the freezer along with the bowling balls she had gotten for me to juggle.

I spent part of Christmas morning going out to the barn to get a show shovel, coming back to the garage, scraping the cat off the balls, and then carrying it on the shovel above my head (it was ripe), out to the wheat field where I had to dig through a foot of snow and frozen ground to bury it. I threw the bowling balls into the snow and didn't see them until Spring.

It was the most special Christmas ever. :)

TlalocW

[Modem Butterfly]

5. Wow. That's even more fucked up than the Turd Present

Hat's off to you!

BTW, I loved what you said to your mom. Sometimes things happen that are so surreal you just have to go with it.

[TlalocW]

6. Oh, I don't know...

The turd one was deliberate. This was just an accident, and it's always good for a laugh when the family gets together and talks. And while I liked the cat, it wasn't really a pet because it wouldn't come near me yet so there wasn't that kind of loss associated with it.

TlalocW